families and major demographic trends

[clay dube]

Let's use this section of the forum to discussion the ideas brought up in our "Making Asia" session. What is the macro-historical demographic impact of family practices?

[clay dube]

Attached is the section of Malthus's classic work An Essay on the Principle of Population devoted to China and Japan.

[clay dube]

The attached section of Malthus's Essay focuses on India and Tibet.

[clay dube]

The complete 2004 Human Development Report, including articles and statistics, can be downloaded at:

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/pdf/hdr04_complete.pdf

Individual chapters can be downloaded at:

http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2004/

Data from the report can be displayed in a number of ways. Students can build their own tables for comparison:

http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/[Edit by="Clay Dube on Jul 30, 8:24:21 PM"][/Edit]

[clay dube]

Today we sought to look concretely at three family practices that have shaped Asia's past, present, and future. We did not get to the second and third of these. They are

a. How Japanese families decided in the 18th century to control the number of children they had, when they had children, and the gender of their children. This reveals important cultural principles and had a dramatic impact on Japan's economic development.

b. How many Indian, Korean, and Chinese families are electing to not raise female children and are holding out for male children. This reveals a long-standing gender bias and the central position of the family in people's thinking. This practice has already distorted the composition of these societies and is bound to have dramatic consequences as this generation reaches adulthood. Some speculate that world security may be jeopardized if present trends continue.

Our discussion of these two cases was going to be brief no matter what, but I will go over them in short order Monday afternoon. The cases to be made are clear and simple, but the impact of the practices was and is dramatic and long-lasting.

We did cover the first case -- how fenjia (family division, partible inheritance), a practice initiated by a prime minister 24 centuries ago as a means of negating the potential threat posed by the economic elite, was eventually adopted by almost everyone in China. This practice, though humane in the sense of permitting nearly all people to marry (note the contrast with some places in Europe and Asia), did much to produce:
- a large population (because of universal and early marriage), occupying a restricted land area
- fragmented plots (because of the need to divide land of differing qualities evenly among sons)
- intense and amazingly productive agricultural practices
- a diverse rural economy as peasant households struggled to find sideline occupations to generate income to supplement their meager income from the dwindling land
- an economic situation that was not favorable to investing in new technologies or production methods since the amount of land one might apply them to was limited and because labor costs in manufacturing were so low

The practice of primogeniture was the rule prior to the sharp bureaucrat's (Shang Yang, ca. 350 bce) move. His threat of double taxation for families that did not divide their property when a second son married, caused elite families to divide their holdings. Later states did not need this law. The practice was emulated by others and became the norm. State action changed family custom. The new custom changed China's physical, economic, and demographic landscape for centuries.[Edit by="Clay Dube on Jul 31, 5:30:19 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

It certainly is amazing to see how the decision of a lawmaker so long ago can so profoundly effect the maturity of a nation. The fragmentation of wealth created a norm that has endured throughout Chinese culture ever since!
Also, I was curious about why many Asian nations seem to have only a few surnames or "clans." The explanation about paterlineal family lines was enlightening. Here is another way that family practices worked to shape a nation's identity and history.

[Anonymous]

As far as infanticide, I will generalize a bit and say that it will probably continue. The primary reason is that America seems to be the popular trend setter and the "strong" feminist ideals in America are not dying but they are slowing down (or at least modifying itself). For instance, a Times article from Spring of 2004 quotes a poll that less women desire to work when they graduate college. Women of generation X seem to give different reasons as to why they don't want to have a career so much like the baby boomer mothers. If this type of trend gets popularized, then society might continue to see women's primary role in the world as domestic and therefore less desirable in the outside world.

[Anonymous]

Clay, this says attahed, but I couldn't find the attachment. thank you, Jan D

[clay dube]

Dear Jan,

Attachments are indicated by a small icon (a clamp holding a file). Beside the icon is the file name and size and an indication of how many times the file has been downloaded. Clicking on the icon should begin the download. PC users will be asked if they want to open the file or save it to disk. The files in this section have all been in text format.

If you can't see the icon, it is possible that your browser (or your version of it) is incompatible with the forum. It might be a good idea to try a different one (e.g., Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox are all compatible).

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

It's interesting to see how different countries have implemented policies in regards to the number of children that people could have. The video that we watched briefly today in class about Singapore was fascinating. I had NO idea that governments would go as far as to have advertising campaigns to "introduce" people to one another, to encourage large families, or discourage having too many children.

[clay dube]

The BBC has drawn on a China Daily on a pilot program in Fujian province that provides families with stipends if they accept having a single male child or stop at two girls.

I believe the sex imbalance (117 males/100 females -- official records, perhaps 130/100 in some places) is likely to continue. It will be reversed only after continued and wider-spread economic growth.

A copy of the 8/12 article is attached.

[Anonymous]

From Belinda: The idea of passing on one's name through a son is so central to Asian families, that I know of several stories where the absence of sons have caused grief. The only son of the last of the "Lu" family has 3 daughters, and his wife (who happens to not be Chinese) would like to bear him a son. Another family has two sons and a daughter, all over 40 years old. The first son is married, but they have tried and have not been able to produce any children, the second son is not married. The father is dissappointed whenever he sees his first son (I suppose the second son still holds hope).

I've been lucky in my own family. Two brothers preceded me. And I am told that my mother cried when she found out her second child was not a girl. She grew up in a family with zero boys and 5 girls, where she always felt that her parents wished she were a boy. This was all in California. What would have happened had the family been in China?

Is the need to have males in the family also important in other cultures?

[Author]

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